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Trip: Mount Robie Reid - SE Ridge Trip Date: 09/17/2023 Trip Report: I've looked at Robie Reid for decades, mostly in winter, as I've driven up 542 from Bellingham to the ski area. It is one of two mountains in SW BC that is impossible to ignore from the areas near the border. The other is Mount Judge Howay, but that is a much more serious undertaking, and since I couldn't find any of the usual suspects to join me last weekend I struck out for the chunky consolation prize that is Robie Reid. In the not too distant past, people would canoe up Alouette Lake to begin this trip, meaning that it was a hard to pull off in a weekend. No longer. Currently the Florence Lake FSR is in great 2wd shape to within a few kms of the end of Alouette Lake, greatly simplifying the approach and making for a reasonable, if physical, weekend. For the young and fit, it is even being done regularly in a 12 hour day or so. But that's not my style. I go heavy with camera gear and slow, and so two days it would be. I got a relatively early start with the plan of dropping my overnight stuff and climbing the peak in the evening of day 1. Partially this was to avoid a marine push Sunday morning (a good plan, turns out) and and partially this was to get home earlier. In the end it worked out just fine, but I was quite tired upon reaching the summit. I think it is something like 6500+ feet of gain from the car, which is a bit much for me and my camera gear. There was a bit of 3rd and 4th class below the false summit but I have no idea if I was on the right path or not- I had no beta other than this is a peak that is commonly scrambled. And so I used my best guesses to link weaknesses on surprisingly good rock. I really enjoyed the climbing on Robie Reid and it was fun to have such a prominent peak all to myself on a beautiful Saturday evening. As I worked my way towards the top, a conspiracy of ravens swooped and circled very close to me, calling with all sorts of noises that only ravens can make. In all my years in the mountains it was unique and very cool. The last bit before the true summit rears up into some exposed 3rd/4th and felt a fitting end to one of the giants of the Lower Mainland. I sat for almost an hour, admiring the view in all directions, and savoring the evening, including a fire raging at the head of Stave Lake. Looking at my watch and doing some quick calculations, I reluctantly turned and headed down about 530pm to ensure I could make it back to my chosen bivy before dark. The exposed bits weighed on my mind a bit being solo, but it all went fine and soon I found myself eating a late dinner, eating some chocolate, and sipping on some whiskey to finish a remarkable day. I opted to sleep out and leave the tent/bivy at home. This may have been a mistake. No, it was a mistake. Despite me carrying higher than the usual camp at Robie Reid tarns and camping at a totally random patch of gravel, I was tormented by mice all night. Near as I could tell, nobody camps in this location, but the mice sure seemed friendly and unafraid to run all across my head and chew through all of my stuff despite my feeble attempts to dissuade them. It was a night where morning couldn't come soon enough. At least I was entertained by trees torching at random intervals across the valley. The next day I retraced my steps but it all felt longer than on the way in, naturally. As a bonus, I got stung twice along Alouette lake as I using a handline around a large cliff. Poor timing. The lingering stings added to the sting in the tail of gaining 800' back up to the car. At least I wasn't locked behind the gate, which appeared to have happened to a father/son pair I met on my way down. I felt appropriately thrashed as I bumped my way out of the woods and back to the border, but fully satisfied with my weekend. I will no longer wonder about Robie Reid as I drive 542 this winter- I'll save that for Judge Howay! Stave Lake and Mount Baker: Here comes the Judge! The true summit: The judge! True summit and the Judge: Lower Fraser Valley at night: Stave Lake Fire: Slese et al: Baker: Twin Sisters and Stave Lake: Robie Reid tarns and Stave Lake: Alouette Lake second growth: Alouette Lake: Gear Notes: Helmet. Early season would mean crampons and axe. But this is best as a late season scramble. Bring a tent and a way to shield food from mice. Approach Notes: Florence Lake FSR is in great shape as of summer 2023. This won't always be true. You can drive within a few kms of the base of the mountain at the moment. Don't wait 5 years!

Trip: Austrian Alps - Stubai High Trail Trip Date: 09/05/2023 Trip Report: Over 20 years ago I had personal blog with custom domain name, and posted pictures of what I had going (hiking, climbing, having a kid, etc) and one day I got an email from some Austrian who was looking for a part for his company from a US business that had a domain name similar to my blogs domain name. We had a ton in common, including to him just having a kid as well. Anyway, we chatted a bit and then just stayed in touch over the years, till last year. My son was doing a quarter in Rome, and so I suggested they might meet if it worked out. Turns out his daughter was working and an au pair in Milan, and so they ended up hanging out and then after his quarter was over my son travelled around Europe for a while, ending his trip with a visit to my Austrian friend's home in a little village in the Austrian Alps. I figured it was high time I pay him a visit myself, and so I bought the plane tickets. We weren't sure how to spend my time there, but I suggested hut hiking as I'd never done that. He suggested the Stubai High Trail. So well after 20 years of our first contact a I showed up in Munich and he picked me up. He had to work the first day I was there, so while he worked, I walked from his house over to a trail and climbed the mountain you could see from his kitchen window. I was a great warm up and introduction to hiking the alps, a trail up into the alpine, with a little scrambling, a cable to two, and then a cross at the top....and an insanely beautiful view below. On the hike back down I tore the crap of my feet, getting blisters all over my feet from my climbing boots. After this we went and bought a part of Scarpa approach shoes which I used instead, as we figured out that we wouldn't actually need mountaineering boots for the peaks we would try. We drove to Innsbruck and bought ourselves some jaunty Tirolian hats, and then headed up to Neustift im Stubaital. We parked the car and headed up to the first hut, which gave me an opportunity to get into shape. Was redlining behind my Austrian Machine. Thom is pretty fit, for his 45th birthday he ran in the mountains, doing 26 miles a day for 10 days in row, running from his parent's old village to his own. Our hike that day was only 5k, but gain 4000ft in elevation. The first hut is the Starkenburger Hütte, and as became our custom we celebrated with a couple cold beers. The views from the hut were awesome. The next day, as we tried to do every day, we beat all the rest of our hut-mates to the trail. We climbed some peaks: Gamskogel 2659m, Steinkogel 2589m, Marchsaule 2598m, and Schwarzhorn 2818. These were gained with hiking or minor scrambling. We then dropped back down to the main trail, stopping for a beer and lunch at a sheep herders hut. Then we continue up the valley, which had impressively steep slopes at parts. At one point I was going through a steep gulley which obviously rockfall and heard crack! and saw a grapefruiit sized rock just graze my foot...I was lucky. We continued to Franz-Senn Hutte, which was one of my favorite. The next day we went Franz-Senn Hutte to Neue Regensburger Hutte, which seems out a movie set with a big waterfall just below it. That day we also climbed Östliche Knotenspitze, which is 3101m. It seemed improbable with no gear, but with a few strategic cables and then lots of narrow ledges and some scrambling it went fine. The next day we went from Neue Regensburger to Dresdner Hutte. The Dresdner is located right on a ski run right below the glaciers above. From the Dresdner to the Sulzenauhütte (where we had lunch) to Nürnberger Hütte was the best day for me, though there was not a bad day at all...they were all special and awesome. On this day we went over yet another pass, going by a huge amount big cairns or "hippy stacks" an incredible view of a canyon below that used to house a glaceir as late at the 1950s, but now there is a just a lake....the glaciers had retreated to well above the lake. There was a massive wall of a moraine below. Then down to the Sulzenauhütte and up by the beautiful blue lake....named "Blue Lake". Over a pass we headed down to the Nürnberger Hütte which was another favorite. The next day we went from the Nürnberger to the Bremer Huttle and climbed Innere Wetterspitze at 3053m, which was great fun. The views up there were amazing. The day after that we headed to Innsbrucker Hutte. Our intention was to climb Habicht, another 3000+m peak, but it there was thunder and rain in the morning so the next day we headed up. I can't begin to convey how fun this trip was. My friend Thomas is the nicest guy you could meet. I might as well have been climbing a with a guide (he actually was guide for a while), but what was the best was having a local who pointed out all the local flora and fuana, history, and translate German for me, and basically arranged everything. We saw plenty of herd of goats and sheep high in the alpine trying to escape the heat. This is the time of year they normally bring them down, but it was still so warm they didn't want to come down yet. We saw a pair of Stienbock, which as very cool, and then smell and eventually saw another one that was dead along the trail. We ran into a lot of other Europeans, and shared some of our time on the trail with a couple from Portland. The company and food in the huts was great save the vegetarian fare they served at the Regensburger Hutte, which came out of me in a 3 second burst just below the steep pass you go through to get out of there. I felt immediately better after. The scenery is quite amazing. It is alarming to see how much the glaciers there have receded, they could be gone in 10 years. I took so many photos and videos. Here a few photos. Gear Notes: silk sleeping bag liner. approach shoes. no tent, stove, etc... Approach Notes: south of Innsbruck

From Aug 20th to 24th Lani Chapko, Nick Gonzalez and I did the first ascent of the direct SE ridge of Seahpo Peak. The SE ridge gains roughly 4400' over around 1.5 miles of horizontal. Jagged Ridge adds roughly another 1.5 miles of ridge traversing. We climbed roughly 30 pitches on the SE Ridge of Seahpo with another 6-8 or so on Jagged Ridge. I would consider the SE ridge a Grade V as a stand alone if a team were to descend the standard route, and while maybe controversial, consider it a Grade VI with its continuation through the Jagged Ridge (Grade V 5.6). We had 18 hours of climbing time on the SE ridge and around 12 hours of climbing time on Jagged, totaling just shy of 30 hrs of climbing time over the course of 3 long days. Lani and I's climbing time on Mongo Ridge was around 17 hours and our non-speed-climber NIAD time last year was 16 hours. While not really relevant, these seem to be common benchmarks that people like to compare to. Photo I found last year from the summit of Icy showing the entirety of the ridge (sorry i don't remember who took it...) Early Attempts: I first spotted the line last year when Joe and I went in to do Spectre. It is a sneaky ridge that is only visible from a fairly narrow window of the North Cascades. We both agreed it looked massive and epic. I convinced Lani to give it an attempt late September. This was a couple weeks after a bad ankle sprain on Jo Berg. We ended up bailing after around 800' of climbing because of extreme heat, dry conditions and mild hallucinations from intense smoke. We approached via the Baker River and Crystal Creek. This year in July we had a window and decided to give it another go. We figured the Baker River approach would not go smoothly so we decided to try a high route approach via the Ruth-Icy traverse. Once at the Icy-Seahpo col we dropped down the head of the Crystal creek cirque and tried to find an access point to the ridge from the north. The climbing looked like 5.10X with minimal anchors, so we ultimately bailed out with the knowledge that we would have to repeat the heinous munge we found on the ridge last year. Day 1: We knew we were heading into dry conditions, so we sought out a third person to join the party to help distribute water weight on the harder climbing near the toe of the ridge. We reached out to Lani's friend Nick the morning of to see if he would be down, and he somewhat reluctantly joined knowing he would be procrastinating some work. The last minute shuffle meant we were in for a bit of a long packing session and late start. We got to the Baker River Trailhead in the mid afternoon and started our approach around 3PM. The approach went smoothly as the Baker River was super low and the crossings were super chill. We again picked up the old trail up crystal creek. We were initially super confused about the existing trail until we consulted with Eric W and learned that there used to be a trail up crystal creek. We got up into crystal creek basin right as it was getting dark and decided to set up camp in the trees just after crossing crystal creek. Near the end of our approach, Nick got stung by a ground wasp and started developing some full body hives. He had previously never been allergic to any kind of stings so this was a new development. Luckily we had just added some Benadryl to the first aid kit. He reacted well to the Benadryl and the hives subsided after around 20 min. Day 2: We started out the day finishing our approach up the crystal creek basin. This involves some mellow, but overhead grassy bushwhacking. When we were here in 2022, there was clear evidence that a ton of bears had trampled the valley. Adding a very eerie feeling to the endeavor. We felt like we were being taunted by Tanuki, hence the name. The climbing on the ridge starts around 2900-3000' depending on how your device is feeling. Once at the base of the ridge again we were back in familiar terrain. Ignorance may have been bliss... The first 1000' of the climb involves some substantial, runout and sometimes challenging munge-a-neering. Lani following one of the 5.9 munge pitches on the first attempt Looking up at the crux munge pitch after bailing on attempt #1 After reaching our high point, we continued questing upward. We had a hunch that we were through the major difficulties of the lower ridge on the first attempt, and luckily that prior assumption was true. 1000' more munge led us to the summit of the first major tower. This tower rises over 2000' over crystal creek basin and feels like a major accomplishment in and of itself. Lani and Nick Following near the top of Tanuki Tower Looking back down at the long scrambling section in the middle of the route After reaching the summit of the first tower, which we later dubbed Tanuki Tower, the ridge eased back for a massive, long section of 3rd and 4th class scrambling, separated by the occasional pitch. We were able to make good time to the base of an obvious gendarme to camp at 6900'. When we arrived at camp we were able to locate a 3rd class access ramp that allowed for access to the glacier on the south side of the ridge. This allowed for a much needed water top off. Future parties could consider gaining the upper (more classic) ridge via this hanging basin and scrambling access ramp to avoid the munge on Tanuki Tower. Looking up at the upper ridge from camp. Day 3: We started by climbing the obvious Gendarme above camp and traversing to the main summit massif and upper ridge. Classic moderate climbing on the Gendarme above camp The upper ridge provided a ton of clean, moderate ridge climbing with a bunch of awesome position and good climbing. Nick leading the upper crux, a clean 5.8+ lieback After a bunch of false summits, gendarme traverses and generally entertaining ridge climbing, we finally found our way to the summit of Seahpo. Stoked on our success we started the debate about continuing. We all had trail runners and light aluminum snow gear. After an hour long debate we decided thin conditions meant we could work around the snow and manage the little that we had to, so we began our committing raps off the summit of Seahpo. We started off with the moderate snow traverse across the glacier to regain the ridge. Conditions were super firm, so while only being around 30 degree traversing terrain, we ended up pitching out this short section. Looking out from the start of the Jagged Ridge Traverse Clean Rock on Jagged Ridge Once back on the rock, we were able to make super quick progress soloing a bunch of 4th class terrain to near the mid point on the Jagged Ridge traverse. There were minimal opportunities for bivies, but we found a reasonable, albeit exposed ledge near the ridge crest. If we would have been able to continue for another 20 min, we would have made to to a kush ledge on the north side of the ridge that would have been sheltered from winds. A nice ledge amongst the choss traversing near the end of Jagged Ridge Day 4: The remaining part of Jagged Ridge was honestly kind of awful without snow coverage. Very loose compact dirt and unstable talus traversing above big exposure. There was the occasional pitch but mostly scrambling. We ultimately made it to the final group of towers that define the exit to the ridge. We didn't really find the "lethal choss chimney" described in other reports, though there was a low angle choss gully with a 5.6 boulder problem around a chockstone. The final pitch to exit was the definitive crux and decent climbing, though a bit steep and committing for 5.6. Once off the traverse, we realized our mistake in equipment selection. It was clear that heading up onto the crystal glacier with so much blue ice exposed would be an awful test of our mediocre snow gear. That and a whiteout shielded the bergshrunds from our vision, so we didn't have a clear view of our exit. Our original plan was to head up and maybe tag the summit pyramid, though we decided to bail onto the slabs below the crystal and sulphide glacier. There was a level of uncertainty with terrain and overhead hazard, though the seracs looked quiet enough to feel comfortable with the traverse. The 2 mile long slab traverse took what felt like days, but we were able to link into the sulphide route right at the standard sulphide camp, avoiding all of the steep exposed ice. We took the slabs just below the snout of the crystal, then back up the rocky passage on the Sulphide Typical terrain on the slabs after a waterfall crossing A quick jaunt down the shannon ridge trail got us back to civilization, but not out of the clear... as we opted not to spend the time to set up a car shuttle. Nick in all of his glory had volunteered to run the shannon ridge trail and road all the way back to baker lake trailhead to shuttle the car, for a total of an 11 mile run to finish off the trip!! Overall, this was a grand journey up one of the largest technical features in the lower 48. I would recommend the whole ridge as an awesome cascadian, blue collar route! Rack: Singles Single Rack to 3 with doubles up to .75, optional KB's, Single 60M Rope A rough track showing our approximate route TH to TH A Close up showing our rough track on route Potential alternate approach tracks; Green showing an early season approach via the Icy-Seahpo col, this route may require some rappels down low angle slabs. Purple being a potential high route that would require a bushwhack up the ridge to the left of Crystal Creek. And Red showing a technical track up low angle waterfall slabs that would access the hanging basin to bypass Tanuki Tower. The two access points (red and purple) seem like equally easy and viable ways to access the ridge.

Trip: [FA] Silver Peak - Ice Cold Zach Daniel's Trip Date: 08/24/2023 Trip Report: Not much to report here but an uneventful new route. Ice Cold Zach Daniel's, 5.9+, 3 pitches, FA Daniel Montgomery and Zach Colburn. The north face of silver peak had kinda always been on our radar as something we felt should be climbed. We hiked a load of bolts to the top last October during our Indian summer (anticipating too many death blocks for any kind of ground up nonsense, which turned out to be accurate). Found a line that seemed like it would go and used up a drill battery. The face was shorter than we hoped (about 80 meters) but seemed worthwhile enough. I went to Utah for about 5 months, came back in April 2023 and waited for the hot days of summer. This basin stays cool and shaded making it nice for the month of August when a lot of the pineapple basin routes are roasting. We hiked up again with more batteries, rapped down and bolted the lower pitches, climbed the route and hiked out. First pitch has 3 bolts and wanders through some choss to a ledge with 2 bolts. This is just so you don't have to link a full 120foot pitch if you don't want to. About 5.7 Second pitch is about 90 feet with some juggy, dirty 5.8 climbing. 3rd pitch (100ft) is quite clean following a line of positive holds diagonally across the face. Fun 80 degree face climbing that requires some thought. It is a little traversy but the rope drag is minimal. To descend make 3 straight 35m raps down from the last anchor. The anchors on the climb dont have rap hardware. It's a pretty short route, approach is only about an hour compared to the tooth though. And it's shaded. There's a ton more potential for similar routes up there, but I don't really care much about bolting any more easy routes. A job for the guides. Gear Notes: 10 draws and a 70m rope Approach Notes: Go to Snoqualmie pass and drive back heading for Mt Catherine/ pct crossing in ollallie meadow. (Fs road 9070) Follow the road back as far as your car will take you then walk it to the end where there's an old fire pit. A trail heads north from here. Follow it to the talus field that sits below the gentle northwest ridge of Silver peak. Then go straight along the talus towards the face/ follow hunter trails along the edge. Pretty easy and doesn't take long. At the base of the face scramble up dirty ledges , the right and traverse back left to the first bolt. (The last rap takes you over the ledges) Zach wrote a more detailed approach beta on mtn project

Lani will be putting on a sideshow of this climb and a couple others at the mountaineers this coming wed. You don’t have to be a member and they are offering free beer! https://www.mountaineers.org/locations-lodges/seattle-program-center/events/beta-and-brews-lani-chapko-on-castle-in-the-sky-tanuki-ridge-and-planning-a-first-ascent?fbclid=IwAR1iojfALeXLUC5YL4jJX4qEtWqOp3JsWczdOolPKGBmH1FpiKr8mvrI33o_aem_ASHUtgeL2Jfs6GJ7zdPvlY_cXrgrVMB9aihwVIL8Bkk5a_YJw8Z2nqrkXM7_bUJhVuE

Trip: Welsh Peaks > Sillver Peak > Hawk Peak > Tull Canyon - traverse Trip Date: 08/20/2022 Trip Report: My climbing partner and I did this little traverse on Saturday morning. We camped at the Silver Creek trailhead, in a tent next to my truck. Every night, like Cato attacking Inspector Clouseau, my climbing partner tests my resolve. He waits till I'm most vulnerable and unsuspecting and attacks. I held him off again, this time in a little BD Firstliight. Later I saw a remarkable "shooting star"...a band of iight moving across the sky rapidly until it disappeared over the eastern horizon. I thought I had seen nothing like it before, but then I remember the Space Shuttle when it fell...it looked liked that, but just the one band of light. My climbing partner woke up at 3:30 and told me he was ready to go now and to stop fucking around, lets go. So I obliged and we got under way at 4am. We reached the summit of the taller Welsh peak right before sunrise and witnessed a glorious birth of a new day from there. Then we moved on our little high country traverse, following game trails and an occasional footprint, moving south, staying high on the ridge as possible. Eventually saw a couple down at Silver lake camped with their dog from our ridge vantage point. We continued on to Silver Lake Peak and then dropped down to the gap between that and the start of the ridge up Hawk Peak. There are several ways up Hawk peak, but we stayed on the south side as much as possible to soak up as much of the views of Constance, Warrior Peaks, the Brothers, Mt Anderson, Mt Jupiter, and others...truly a great vista. The Puget Sound below remained carpeted in clouds. We made our way up to Hawk Peak, which is an incredible vantage point. Then we left, but I forgot my trekking poles so we had to backtrack and go get them from the summit. We dropped down to the basin of Tull Canyon, which is very beautiful. Unfortunately you have to drop quite a ways before finding water, and not long after that we were at the plane wreck in Tull Canyon. You can read all about it here, a fascinating story. What I found most interesting is that only three of the crew died, listen to this account: We visited the wreck for a while and then continued down the trail to the Tubal Cain trail. We ran up to make sure the main mine was still open (it is!) Then we hiked down and out via the Tubal Cain trail, and then the mile back up to the truck. A fun 6.5 hours moving time/ 8.5 hours total. Milage was a little less than 15 miles (including back track to get trekking poles). We saw people first up by the plane wreck which appears to be growing in popularity like everything else....and there was a conga line going up Tubal Cain trail. Didn't go to the back of the main mine at Tubal Cain as my climbing partner wouldn't let me, but if you go up there do it...it's an adventure. photo dump: Gear Notes: trail running pack, trekking poles Approach Notes: drive to the end of the dungie road

Trip: Uzbekistan - Alpomish - New Highpoint of Uzbekistan Trip Date: 08/23/2023 Trip Report: Alpomish (4668m, IV, 7 pitch 5.8), Highpoint of Uzbekistan, and Khazret Sultan (4643m, III, 2 pitch 5.7), Second Highest Peak in Uzbekistan Aug 21-26, 2023 Eric Gilbertson and Andreas Frydensberg First Ascent of Alpomish Andreas near the summit of Alpomish Aug 21 – Taxi to Sarytog village, hike in Aug 22 – Hike to base of Alpomish Aug 23 – Climb Alpomish (7 pitch 5.8) Aug 24 – Hike to base of Khazret Sultan Aug 25 – Climb Khazret Sultan (2 pitch 5.7) Aug 26 – Hike out, taxi to Dushanbe Until now it was widely accepted that Khazret Sultan Peak was the highest peak in Uzbekistan. I’m working on climbing country highpoints so it was on my list to climb. On this trip we discovered that Alpomish, a previously unclimbed peak, is in fact the true Uzbekistan highpoint. Khazret Sultan is located on the border with Tajikistan in the Gissar Range and is not a popular peak. It was most likely first climbed by Soviet mountaineers in the 1930s or in 1961, possibly a surveying team. It was first named Peak of the 22nd Party Congress, but this name was dropped after Uzbekistan gained independence. The peak was next climbed in August 2005 by Ginge Fullen and Tajik guide Tolic, climbing the northeast ridge from the Tajikistan side. This was Ginge’s third attempt to climb the highpoint and he discovered extremely valuable beta about the route and logistics. This would make it much easier for future climbers like me. The route On the summit they found the cairn left by the first ascent team. At that point the peak was officially unnamed and just referred to by its elevation, Peak 4643. This was the elevation measured on the most recent ground survey, the 1981 soviet topographic map. Based on the 1981 soviet topographic map, the most accurate map of the area, this was considered the highest peak in Uzbekistan. There were no higher peaks on the map and no subsequent ground surveys after 1981 of the area. In June 2010 a team of Uzbek climbers climbed the peak also from the Tajikistan side and later gave it the officially-recognized name of Khazret Sultan Peak. They officially recognized it as the highpoint of Uzbekistan. This unfortunately has led to a bit of confusion because there was already another peak named Mount Khazret Sultan in Uzbekistan at an elevation of 4083m. That is considered a holy mountain and is frequently climbed by pilgrims. It is not the country highpoint. Since 2010 there was one other known ascent, by Pat Bauman (solo) in August 2018 via the northeast ridge. Pat gave me excellent beta, saying the route was mostly 4th class with one or two pitches of 5.7 (which he soloed up and down). He also gave me a few GPS coordinates of key locations on the route. The 1981 Soviet topo map. Khazret Sultan is labeled 4643.3 but Alpomish is not surveyed I’ve been planning to climb Khazret Sultan every summer since 2019, but it never worked out. I always planned to tag it on at the end of another expedition but usually ran out of time. Finally in 2023 I again planned again to tag in on at the end of another expedition. I would climb my remaining snow leopard peaks Korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma in Tajikistan, then afterwards if I had time I’d go in with Andreas to climb Khazret Sultan. Since I’d already be in Tajikistan and the best route was from the Tajikistan side it should be straightforward. Before the trip, though, Andreas noticed open street map showed a peak called Alpomish with a higher elevation about 6km south of Khazret Sultan on the Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border. I found Gaia had similar results. I researched all topographic maps based on ground surveys of the area and purchased the relevant maps from mapstor.com. The 1981 soviet map was the only one with enough detail to show both peaks and appears to be the last ground survey conducted in the area. Interestingly, while the map had a spot elevation of 4643m on khazret sultan, there was no spot elevation for Alpomish. The topo lines for Alpomish showed it slightly shorter. But with no spot elevation for the summit that means the summit was not directly surveyed and the topo lines for the peak are just approximate. We then looked at satellite based measurements (SRTM) from google earth. The highest elevation points on each peak were exactly the same to the nearest meter. SRTM can have high errors up to 16m or more on sharp peaks, so this meant the two peaks were within error bounds of each other based on SRTM. Google maps terrain view had both within the 4600m contours but Alpomish was within a bigger contour. That usually, but not always, means the peak is taller. I believe the open street map, Gaia, and google terrain elevations are using digital elevation models (DEMs) to approximate elevations in between point measurements taken by satellites. They use different models so get slightly different elevations. The problem with the DEMs is that they are just approximations. Unless the satellite measurement sampled the exact summit of alpomish (very unlikely for a sharp peak), then there will always be unknown error in them DEM elevation. This seemed like a very interesting problem to solve. Which peak – Alpomish or Khazret Sultan – is the true country highpoint of Uzbekistan? Based on all existing information it was too close to know for sure. I could think of two ways to figure out the answer. The first was to fly a plane over Alpomish taking Lidar measurements which should be accurate to the nearest foot. That flight is unlikely to ever happen. The second is to go in and take ground measurements of alpomish. That I could do. Over the past year I’ve been acquiring survey equipment and skills that would be perfect for such an expedition. Just this july I finished an extensive survey project to find the true 100 highest peaks in Washington (results available at https://www.countryhighpoints.com/washington-top-100-peaks-updated-list/ ). I’ve conducted over a dozen ground surveys using sight levels, a theodolite, and a survey grade differential gps unit. I could apply those same skills and equipment to survey alpomish. My plan was to bring the differential GPS unit and sight levels to the summit of alpomish. The theodolite would be too heavy. The gps with a one hour measurement should give me an absolute elevation accurate to the within 3cm. As a backup I would use my 5x and 1x 10-arcminute sight levels to measure the angular inclination or declination looking from alpomish to khazret sultan. I could find the horizontal distance between them from Google earth and use trigonometry to find the relative height. I could then add the relative height to the known soviet-surveyed height of khazret sultan to find the absolute height of alpomish. To get more measurements to increase confidence I would then climb khazret sultan and repeat the whole process. I’d take an absolute height measurement with the differential GPS and also take angular measurements from khazret sultan looking back to alpomish. I could again calculate a relative height and use this to find the absolute height of alpomish. Also, if there were any intermediate locations of known elevation from the topo map I could use the sight levels to measure angular inclination up to alpomish and again find an absolute height. Finally, I would bring my handheld garmin 62s GPS for another independent source of height measurements. This has higher error than the differential GPS but could help increase confidence in whether alpomish is taller than khazret sultan or not. Ideally all measurements would agree. The more measurements I take that all agree the more confident I am in the final result. I usual am only comfortable if at least three independent measurements all agree before reporting a summit elevation. This was all a nice plan for surveying alpomish, but the more difficult part would likely be actually climbing it. I spent a lot of time trying to research if there had ever been previous ascents and I couldn’t find any information. We even had russian friends search in russian databases and they didn’t find any reports of ascents or attempts. This was intriguing. The peak had apparently never been surveyed accurately enough to know if it was the country highpoint and had never been climbed. This expedition sounded like true exploration. For better or worse with no beta or even pictures of the mountain I decided to come prepared for the worst. I would bring a full climbing rack with doubles of the intermediate pro, rock shoes, 60m rope, crampons, ice ax, and screws. I knew khazret sultan had a bit of rock climbing and was nearby so it was a good guess that alpomish might also involve rock climbing. We could make out glaciers at the base of alpomish from the satellite images so there was a good chance there might also be snow and ice climbing. Satellite images couldn’t really show if the peak was technical or not, though. With so much uncertainty in the route we decided to build in quite a few buffer days. We decided on one day to circumnavigate the peak to assess the best route and two days to climb the route. Then we gave ourselves two days to climb khazret sultan in case that had difficult route finding. We knew from Pat’s beta the best way in to khazret sultan was starting in sarytog village. However, it was unclear what the best way was to get from there to alpomish. I researched that there exists a trail over Mura pass nearby. That connects to an adjacent valley which would eventually lead up to alpomish. But it was very indirect – about 20 miles from khazret to alpomish. I played around a lot on Google earth and it looked like there was another option to climb up to a glacier up the valley from khazret sultan and cross a pass above that. Then we could try to stay high and cross one more glacier pass to get to the base of alpomish. That route was half the distance but there was more uncertainty in whether it would work. We decided to go for it, though, to save time. We probably had enough technical gear to make it work. So the full itinerary with all the buffer days added up to nine days. With all the climbing gear, survey equipment, and nine days of food that would make for very heavy packs. To help a bit we planned to climb alpomish first and cache extra food on the way in at the turnoff for the khazret sultan valley. I would bring an ursack so animals couldn’t get into our cached food. I liked going for alpomish first because it was the biggest prize, was the main objective for the trip, had the most uncertainty, and was the farthest away. Thus it made sense to prioritize. If we managed to climb alpomish, then khazret sultan would be easy to finish on in comparison. With the trip fully planned we started out on our primary expedition to finish the snow leopard peaks. We started by acclimating on Bazarduzu, the Azerbaijan highpoint, then flew to Tajikistan and moskvina glade basecamp in late July. Over the next few weeks we successfully climbed Pik Korzhenevskaya and Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni, finishing the snow leopards on Aug 16. Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni, Tajikistan highpoint and final snow leopard peak The next helicopter out of basecamp wasn’t scheduled until aug 26, but it turned out a group of climbers had arranged for a medical evacuation flight on aug 19. One of them had taken a fall and needed to go to the hospital. Helicoptering out of basecamp They were nice enough to let us squeeze on the flight, though we had to bribe the pilot to accept (even though the flight was completely paid for by the climbers’ insurance). We were lucky enough to fly all the way to dushanbe on aug 19, a full week ahead of schedule! This gave us plenty of time for our bonus objectives of alpomish and khazret sultan. The climber ended up being ok after visiting the hospital. Back in town with internet access we bought flights home for early september and took a full rest day to buy food for our next trip and repack. Then we were ready to go. Aug 21 After two nights at the Green House Hostel we left our extra gear stored and headed out in a taxi at 8am. Lucky for us our trailhead town Sarytog is located near Iskanderkul, a big lake in the mountains that is a popular tourist destination. So transportation would be easy. We paid $80 for the ride which went due north of dushanbe into the mountains. We stopped for an early lunch of sashleek along the way and made it to sarytog by noon. The road on our intended route appeared to continue past the village, but it was rough and our taxi driver was not interested in proceeding. So he dropped us off at the edge of town. We took down his WhatsApp number in case we wanted to call for a ride back, but didn’t want to arrange anything in advance. There was too much uncertainty in the trip timing. We could get lucky and finish early (unlikely) or need more time and stretch our food and get back late. We figured most likely we could just ask around in town whenever we got back and someone would be happy to make some extra money and drive us to dushanbe. Andreas stashed some flip flops in the bushes (a good idea I should have also done) then by 1230pm we started walking. For the first hour we walked along a gravel road out of town along the south side of the Capomok river. The road would be passable to a normal car most of the way. Halfway we passed a set of buildings and volleyball net that was labed Camp Archa the meadows on Gaia. I think this is a popular weekend destination for campers from Dushanbe. Hiking up the valley from Sarytog The road ended at the confluence with the Mura river and we stayed on the east side going up river on a decent trail. It got narrow in a few places on steep side slopes but was generally very good. We stopped for a brief break at the small village of Sarikhodan. This was at the turnoff for Mura pass. The village was only six small rock structures and I think the villagers are mostly shepherds in the area. From there we continued on good trails on the east side until we reached the dikondara confluence. On our map it looked like the west side was easier travelling, so we decided to cross. It wasn’t too bad – we just took of our shoes and waded through the shin deep cold water. Crossing the Dikondara river On the other side the river edge cliffed out but we hiked high on sheep trails and mostly had easy strolls through meadows. After the cliff section I noticed a wood bridge down at the river. We would keep that in mind for the return if needed. We continued through easy meadows on sheep trails until 6pm when we reached our planned cache location at the turnoff for the khazret sultan valley. There we waded across to the south side of the dikondara and found a good boulder to cache our food under. It would be easy to identify since there was a sheep carcass next to it. We continued a little farther to a nice flat meadow and pitched our tent there for the night. I boiled water in a tea kettle we’d bought in dushanbe since our reactor stove had gotten left at moskvina basecamp. The evening was surprisingly windy and we hoped it wouldn’t be like that for the summits. Camp at the turnoff for the khazret sultan valley Meteorologist Chris Tomer was continuing to send us daily forecasts to my inreach as he had done for korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma and it looked like the next few days would be good summit days. Aug 22 Our objective for the next day was to make it to the base of alpomish, about 10 miles away. It didn’t seem like a long day so I didn’t set an alarm. Around 7am we were woken up by a big dog poking his nose inside the tent! He soon left and I stuck my head out to see a shepherd on a donkey heading up the khazret sultan valley. He soon tied up the donkey and continued on foot. I suspect he was checking on some cows that we would later see grazing up there. Hiking up to the grassy cirque above camp He just happened to tie up the donkey next to our cached food and I was a bit nervous the dog might smell it and dig it out of the rocks I’d piled up. So I walked up there and moved the ursack to a different boulder closer to our tent. I figured the shepherd would assume it was related to the people in the tent and not mess with it. We soon packed up and continued up the valley. We followed sheep trails into a big basin with glaciers visible above then headed steeply up the right side. We found as long as there was grass there would be trails to follow, so we stuck to the grassy slopes as much as possible. We eventually ran out of grass and followed talus to the toe of the westernmost glacier in the basin, closest to the Uzbek border. The pass above the glacier is labelled pass 2 on gaia (but in russian/cyrillic). The glacier crossing to access the next valley The glacier was low angle enough and the ice/snow soft enough that we were able to continue all the way to the pass above around 4000m without putting on crampons. Interestingly I saw what looked like old sheep poop in some places and the pass had a small cairn. It appears shepherds must occasionally use that pass as a shortcut between valleys without needing to go all the way down to Mura pass. That’s pretty much exactly what we were doing too. It was very satisfying that all my research on Google earth had been accurate and the route had worked to the pass so far. The other side was low angle as I expected and we easily descended the scree and talus slopes to the next basin below. From there we traversed around the base of a ridge on 3rd class ledges to gain the next basin to the south. We crossed talus fields there to reach the toe of the largest glacier on the west end of the basin. The next glacier pass to cross This glacier was a bit steeper than the previous one and would likely require crampons to walk directly over. But there was a scree slope on the right side that looked doable. I was a little lazy about putting on crampons so opted for the scree slope. We made good progress and were soon at the pass. Surprisingly there was another cairn there. Perhaps shepherds use that pass too to get between valleys. We took a break at the pass and I noticed a formidable looking peak looming above to the southwest. It was composed of four steep spires like fingers sticking up from a hand. It was in the general direction of Alpomish. Andreas was skeptical that it was alpomish and I was hopeful it wasn’t since it looked really hard. We decided to get to our planned basecamp before worrying about it. From camp we could be certain which peak was alpomish. First view of alpomish From the pass we descended scree slopes then traversed around the ridge extending east from alpomish. We crossed some talus fields and eventually reached the small tarn at 3975m I had planned as our bacamp. The camp was perfect, and one of the most scenic I can remember camping at. The toe of a glacier ended in a tall ice cliff with waterfalls pouring into the tarn. The tarn had icebergs floating inside and was surrounded by boulders except for the southwest side which had a sandy beach next to the outflow. We pitched our tent on the beach by 6pm. Above us loomed Alpomish at the head of the unnamed glacier, as we verified on our map. For better or worse it was the same four-finger mountain we’d been intimidated by before. Now it looked even steeper. At basecamp for Alpomish It reminded me a lot of the east face of Mt Whitney in the Sierra nevada mountains of california. There was a huge granite face for each of the four spires. The left most (southern most) spire clearly looked the tallest, and I verified this with my sight levels. There was no obvious easiest way up and I was happy to have brought all the climbing gear. We would certainly need it. The next day was a planned scouting day and I hoped we could find some weakness in the peak once we walked closer for a better look. It was too late in the day to get any meaningful scouting in before dark though. But, I could get our first altitude measurement. I knew the altitude of the tarn from our topo map and could calculate the distance to the peak from gaia. Nice campsite by the tarn I measured angular inclinations using my 5x and 1x sight levels and got consistent results of 19 deg 50min. I calculated that alpomish was then between 4660m – 4670m tall. (There was a bit of uncertainty in the exact distance to the peak based on the topo lines on the map and this translated to uncertainty in altitude). That was significantly taller than khazret sultan! It was an intriguing result and already consistent with altitudes on gaia and open street map. I hoped I could get more measurements to increase confidence in the results. Sunset soon came and we went to bed. The forecast was for a sunny morning but slight chance of afternoon snow showers the next day, so we see our alarms to get up early. Approaching the east face of Alpomish Aug 23 We were up at sunrise and moving by 6am, ready for a potentially big day. The official plan was to do a scouting trip circumnavigating the mountain to look for a good route up. But we would bring all our climbing and surveying gear just in case we saw a good route to try that day. From camp we immediately got on the glacier and started walking towards the peak. As we got closer the features became easier to make out. The direct east face looked like good rock with cracks but would be very long. A gully went up to the left skyline which might work. There was a saddle to the right we could possibly use to get around to the back side of the peak. The rightmost spire looked like the easiest and maybe we could traverse from there to the summit. But that would require climbing the two intermediate spires which looked tough. Looking back towards camp There was a big gully leading up to the notch between the summit and the next spire to the right. From the notch to the summit looked short and doable. If that gully was scree or third class maybe the peak actually wouldn’t be too tough. We decided to go for the gully since it seemed like a reasonably high chance of success. Of course there could have been an even better way on the back side but we decided to gamble and try to go for the summit then instead of continuing scouting. This also had the advantage that we wouldn’t have to sneak over to the Uzbek side of the border, though I’m pretty sure that part of the border doesn’t get patrolled. Looking up at the east face We found an icy snow ramp at the base of the gully and cramponed up until the snow ran out at a slabby construction. We made a somewhat sketchy scramble up to scree slopes then traversed left onto third class blocks. The gully wrapped around to the left above us and we thought it looked all melted down to scree, so we ditched crampons and ice axes there. We continued up on third class blocks on the left side then met chossy scree up higher. We soon met a split with the left gully blocked by a huge chock stone. I guess that wasn’t too surprising in these kind of gullies. A right gully looked open and it was tempting to think it provided a way around the chockstone, but in my experience I judged that extremely unlikely. That gully most likely just led up to the notch between the next two spires. Climbing the east gully We climbed up to the chockstone and I saw light underneath, but it was too small of a hole to wriggle through. We would have to climb around. I changed into my climbing shoes and stashed my boots and poles and racked up. Luckily there was a crack on the face to the right that looked doable. Andreas belayed me up the face as I zippered it up with gear. At the top it turned into an overhang and I traversed left delicately on a steep slab to at last reach the top of the chockstone. I continued a little higher on scree to build a good anchor on the wall on the right. The pitch was about 5.7. Looking down from above the chockstone pitch Andreas didn’t bring rock shoes so climbed in hiking boots. I think the traverse was a bit trickier but he made it up fine. Above us we scrambled a little ways up chossy rock then encountered a constriction with a small waterfall in the middle. That was nice there was water to drink, but it meant there was probably ice and snow above us we hadn’t planned on. The constriction was steep and exposed so we decided to pitch it out. I led up again, managing to mantle up on the right side of the water to stay dry. Above it I climbed another small steep bit to an anchor on the left wall where the terrain turned back to scree. The pitch was 5.7. I belayed andreas up and then we noticed above us was a huge mass of ice filling the gully all the way up to the notch. If we could reach the notch the summit looked attainable. But we had ditched our crampons and ice axes. We would have needed technical tools and technical crampons and more ice screws anyway to make it up that. Ice leading up to the notch We optimistically scrambled up to the base to get a better look anyway just in case we could climb rock on the edge. But it was no use. We’d have to find a different way up. It looked like the only option was to move onto the face on our left and climb the remaining distance. Fortunately the rock looked protectable and climbable. Climbing the east face We descended back to my previous anchor on the left wall and I started up. I was able to follow ramps and ledges up to a nice ledge above for a 5.4 pitch. Andreas soon followed. Above that I tried to continue on ledges facing the gully but they got steeper and I needed to make a few stemming moves with an overhang to my left. I surmounted the overhang but then opted to traverse left to a ridge crest with a good belay ledge. That pitch was 5.7. Climbing the east face It looked like staying on the rock facing the gully was not going to work and we’d have to move farther left onto the main east face. The next pitch would be the crux of the route. I climbed a steeper 5.8 crack directly up the ridge crest. I poked my nose over to the right but it looked tough. So I instead made a delicate traverse left into a cleft. Shortly below me the cleft led to an overhang with extreme exposure but above looked doable. I made a few more moves to a ledge and belayed Andreas up. I think the delicate traverse was again tricky in hiking boots. Starting the final pitch From that belay I could see the summit, but the direct east face looked smooth and tough. I continued up the cleft and managed to cross back right to the rock facing the gully. There I found nice ledges and ran the rope out to its end for a 5.5 pitch. Finally the summit looked attainable! From that ledge I climbed directly up to the summit ridge behind a spire and crossed to the other side. I wove the rope around horns and followed the final knife edge ridge to at last reach the summit at 4pm. The final pitch was 5.5. Andreas on the final knife edge ridge to the summit ‍ I tagged the summit, which was a sharp bit on the knife edge. Then I downclimbed to a small boulder notch below. I slung the boulder and belayed Andreas up. Our route up alpomish Miraculously the predicted afternoon snow never materialized and we were treated to partly cloudy skies, warm temperatures, and no wind. It was a perfect summit day. We took a bunch of pictures and I looked over to the west side of the peak into Uzbekistan. Interestingly, it looked like glacier ice extended all the way up to the notch from that side. The rock between the summit and notch just looked like a few pitches and not too steep. So in theory if climbers came early season from the Uzbekistan side maybe they could just walk up snow to the notch and climb a few rock pitches to the summit. On the summit I soon brought out the survey gear and started setting up. I first made a quick verification with the sight level that all nearby spires of the peak were shorter, which was indeed true. We were definitely on the highest point. Then I got out the tripod, mounted the antenna and plugged in the differential GPS. I had a bit of trouble mounting the antenna somewhere so it could stand vertical and i eventually put it as high as I could between a boulder and the knife edge ridge. It needed to stand vertical for ideally one hour, so it didn't make sense for me to just hold it. I started logging data but it had trouble acquiring satellites for some unknown reason. I turned on my garmin 62s handheld unit and it was able to acquire satellites in the same location. Perhaps the boulder obstruction was an issue, but there weren't many options up there for mounting the device. Setting up the differential GPS unit near the summit I played around with settings a bit and finally decided to just let it take whatever measurements it could and I would try to process them later. I cursed myself for not taking test measurements on the way in, but it had worked fine on my last trip in Washington. It's possible the issue was related to me being outside the US. I was happy I had backup measurement equipment though, which would still suffice for measuring the altitude of alpomish in case the differential GPS didn’t work. I then took out my 5x and 1x sight levels and pointed them towards khazret sultan as verified by gaia. With each sight level I measured 10-20min angular declination looking down at khazret sultan. Clearly khazret sultan was shorter. Andreas on the summit I also noted altitude measurements from the garmin 62s and from my garmin fenix 6 watch after gps calibration. We hung out on top until 5pm taking measurements but then had to get down. I hadn’t found any evidence of anchors or cairns or any human presence so it seemed very likely we had made the first ascent of alpomish. Anyone else climbing such a technical peak would likely have rappelled off, but we saw no rap anchor evidence. I had come prepared with a lot of rap gear, though, and was experienced making rap anchors from my big wall climbing expeditions in the northwest territories, canada. View from the summit I slung a rock horn near the summit, backed it up with a cam, and started down. We only had a 60m rope so would need to make a lot of rappells (I wished then that we’d brought twin ropes, but that would have been heavier to hike in with). I planned to rap directly back into the gully since that would be shorter than our ascent route and hopefully require leaving less gear on the mountain. We couldn’t rap directly to the notch, though, since it looked too sketchy to then get down the steep ice without crampons. So I planned to do diagonal rappels until we were clear of the ice, then rap straight down. It’s a little bold to rap down a face we hadn’t climbed up, but it looked featured enough that I could probably make enough anchors. Looking at khazret sultan I rapped down diagonally and found another good horn at a good ledge to sling. I built the next anchor, then Andreas followed. I again made another diagonal rappell on ledges and again found another good horn to sling. Horns are great because I just have to leave some cord as an anchor. I’d brought 30m of 5mm cord for this purpose and it was relatively cheap. Unfortunately one problem with diagonal rappells on loose non vertical terrain is the rope pulls aren’t always smooth. On that pull the rope got caught on a rock and when I yanked it the fist sized rock dislodged from about 20ft above us. It grazed Andreas on the rear end but he said he was ok. Rapping down I next rapped into an icy gully and over to a ledge on the side. Unfortunately there were no horns. My second choice rap anchor is a two-nut anchor. Nuts are cheap – about $10 a piece – so it’s not too bad to leave a few. And they can be very solid. We were still over the ice so did another diagonal rappell on ledges. Again there were no horns so I had to leave another two-nut anchor. Finally we appeared to be nearly clear of the ice. I next rapped straight down to a ledge just above the ice and found a good horn to sling. Andreas joined and by then it was finally dark enough for headlamps. I think we were pretty efficient at 30min per rap. At the last rope throw the ends reached the bottom of the ice and we were soon safely back on scree in the gully. But we werent quite off the technical section yet. We walked down to the top of the waterfall pitch and I slung another horn. That pitch had seemed long, but by rapping directly down and relying on some rope stretch we just barely reached the scree below the waterfall. Rapping down the final chockstone pitch We then walked to the chockstone and slung a boulder above. That had been a long and indirect pitch too. But, by rapping directly over the chockstone we again barely reached the scree below. Finally by 9pm we were off the last technical section. I switched back to boots and we carefully hiked and scrambled down the chossy gully. After retrieving our stashed crampons we decided to try to avoid down climbing the sketchy slabs to the snow ramp. We instead continued scrambling down the blocky 3rd class stretch. It eventually cliffed out, but we were able to traverse onto the snow ramp at a safe spot. From there we cramponed down in the dark following our ascent route. We finally staggered back to camp at 11pm for a long 17 hour day. Last view before leaving basecamp Aug 24 We were several days ahead of schedule, but Chris forecast bad weather coming in Aug 27 that might leave a foot of snow on the summits for a long time. So we didn’t want to take any rest days to delay things. We allowed ourselves to sleep in, though, and were up and moving by 10am. The goal for the day was to move camp to the base of khazret sultan. All measurements had so far indicated alpomish was significantly taller, but we still wanted to be thorough and get final measurements from the summit of khazret sultan to be absolutely certain with our conclusion. View of alpomish from the hike out. Summit is the left spire We followed the exact same high route crossing the two glaciated passes. At the last pass we started getting snow flurries and by the time we reached our food cache at 430pm there was intermittent drizzle. We were very fortunate that hadn’t happened the previous day on alpomish. Crossing the first glacier pass We took a short break, got a little but of food out of the cache, then started up the khazret sultan valley at 5pm. We had earlier seen the shepherd go up the left side of the river so we stayed on that side too. The trail started good but soon deteriorated. We made slow progress along the steep sidehill full of talus. The light rain made the boulders slippery and we had to be extra careful. Finally we were able to cross to the right side and travel eased. We hiked a chossy slope up to an upper basin then hugged the right side on cow trails in the grass. Ascending the valley towards khazret sultan We reached the end of the grass by sunset and pushed on to a small tarn at 3970m a little farther up where we leveled out a campsite. I had hoped to reach the basin at the base of the khazret sultan route that day so we could scout the route, but it didn’t make sense proceeding in the dark with unknown water source locations. So we slept there for the night. Aug 25 The next day was forecast to be sunny until 11am then increasing chances of snow up to 1 inch on the afternoon. We expected khazret sultan to be mostly 4th class so would hopefully go much faster than alpomish. Starting up the valley at sunrise We were up and moving by 6am, and unfortunately the rocks were all icy. The evening rain had frozen on the rocks overnight. We hoped the sun could de-ice the route by the time we got on it. At the base of khazret sultan We hiked up talus to eventually reach the basin at the base of the southeast face of khazret sultan. From there Pat’s route was to hike up a gully to gain the east ridge, the follow that to the northeast ridge, then follow that to the summit. Hiking up to the northeast ridge This looked pretty circuitous and the ridges looked tough from below. But we optimistically trusted Pat that it was mostly 4th class and went for it. (For reference, Pat has free-soloed big wall routes on half dome in yosemite, so I suspected his 4th class was a bit stiffer than mine). I racked up at the bottom of the gully and we hiked up easy scree and talus to a big notch on the top. From there we turned left and continued up another wide choss gully all the way to a col at the intersection with the northeast ridge. I was amazed how much progress we could make on easy terrain and still not need to do any scrambling. That was not at all obvious from below. Good ledges on the north side. Summit in background We peered over the col at the northeast ridge and were met with a big cliff dropping of to the north basin. The route definitely didn’t go there. Staying on the ridge crest looked technical so we dropped back 10m and traversed across a good ledge below the ridge. We could soon scramble back up to the ridge crest. The crest looked 4th class from there so we scrambled a bit along it. We then moved to the left side and had to wriggle down a chimney to some dirty ledges that dead ended. Looking back along the ridge The terrain looked steep above but that was the only way forward. I switched to climbing shoes but this time kept the boots, crampons, and whippet. I didn’t want to get turned around by snow and ice. I ended up placing just one cam, then crossed the ridge and found a huge ledge system. I belayed andreas up and we packed up the rope. The crux technical section up from the notch From there we scrambled either on ledges to the right of the crest or exactly on the ridge crest. Any rock in the shadows was a bit sketchy since the ice hadn’t yet melted off. So we had to be very careful. We eventually reached a deep notch in the ridge and the terrain above looked technical. The right side of the ridge looked loose, chossy, and icy. I chose to climb directly up the crest from the notch. It was technical but at least not icy. Looking across the north basin I climbed some loose rock below then made a few low 5th class moves to a nice ledge. I noticed a slung boulder there so it appeared we were on the same route others had taken. I don't think this peak sees many ascents, though. I only know for sure of four ascents. I belayed andreas up then started up the next pitch. There was a piton down low, then I climbed a fun 5.7 corner. I eventually pulled myself up onto a pedestal and clipped an existing rap anchor that was a big black 11mm static line. This may have been left by Ginge. Climbing along the northeast ridge at the top of the 5.7 pitch That was the last technical section out of the notch. Andreas belayed me farther on 4th class terrain until I reached a chossy ridge. There we put the rope away and descended slightly to another notch with some snow in it. On the broad foresummit I switched to boots and we continued up choss, then talus, then 3rd class blocks on the other side. We eventually walked up loose slopes to a broad summit. A horn was slung and a sign saying Ucell and a bunch of Russian text hung from it. Slightly farther along the ridge we saw a huge cairn with a bamboo pole sticking out. That looked like the summit. Unfortunately it was along a technical ridge. So I put my rock shoes back on and Andreas belayed me one more pitch to the summit, which I reached by noon. Our route up Khazret Sultan I built an anchor, belayed him over, then we stopped to take in the view. Glaciated rocky technical looking peaks surrounded us. Far below were grassy valleys where sheep likely grazed. It was very scenic. The final pitch to the summit of khazret sultan I looked over towards alpomish and the four spires were meshed into one ridge because of the angle, but the peak location was obvious. I took out my sight levels and measured 10-20 minute angular inclination up to alpomish. This was exactly consistent with my previous measurements and confirmed alpomish is indeed taller than khazret sultan and is the true country highpoint of Uzbekistan. Taking sight level measurements from the summit I also took measurements with my Garmin 62s handheld GPS and my gps calibrated garmin fenix 6. Both measurements had khazret sultan lower so all measurements (ten in all) were consistent that alpomish was the true highpoint. Both on the summit I hadn’t bothered to take up the differential GPS since i hadnt been able to figure out which settings to change to allow it to start acquiring satellites. And khazret sultan already had a very accurate ground survey elevation from the 1981 soviet map. The next spire along the ridge that is the true summit I next took sight level readings of the different spires in the summit area and noticed the sharp spire with bird poop on top farther along the ridge was perhaps a few inches taller than the cairn summit. We each went over to tag it just to be sure. Hiking back from the summit After taking all the measurements and writing them down in my field notebook I belayed andreas back across the ridge. I had instructed him to leave all the pro in on the way over so he could easily reclip on the way back. I changed back into boots and quickly started back down the route. We could see rain in the distance towards Sarytog and a few snow flurries were starting to hit. This was just as Chris had predicted. I knew if the 4th class rock got wet it could get sketchy so we needed to get down asap. Rapping down the notch We scrambled down to the snowy notch then up the choss on the other side. This time we continued scrambling the fourth class ridge along to the top rap anchor. I backed it up then rapped down to the intermediate ledge. We then used the existing anchor there, backed up, and rapped to the notch. It was so much faster with these existing anchors than it had been descending alpomish! Scrambling back along the northeast ridge in deteriorating weather At the notch we packed up the rope and started scrambling. Luckily by then the ice had melted off the rocks on the north side so it felt a bit more secure. But the snow and wind started picking up and the rocks started to get wet. We got to the end of the fourth class section and I built an anchor to rap off the first bit we had pitched out. With the wet rock I decided to pitch out the final fourth class section also. I climbed up the chimney, across the steep ridge, and was finally back to a third class ledge. Final scramble section I belayed Andreas up and we finally packed up the rope for good. It seemed like we’d gotten off the steep part of the route just in time before it got wet. From there we descended easy 3rd class ledges to our stashed hiking poles then scree surfed back to the basin below. We hiked back on talus, reaching our camp by 430pm. The clouds looked very dark down towards Sarytog and it looked like we’d missed the brunt of the precipitation, but the summit still looked windy and snowy. Good views of the dikon glacier below We quickly packed up and headed down. This time we stayed on the left (north) side of the river and were able to follow nice animal trails down. We actually saw a few cows grazing up there. By 7pm we waded back across the river to our previous campsite. We picked up our cached food, set up the tent, and were asleep by sunset. Hiking back to camp Aug 26 The next morning by 630am we waded back across to the west side of the river and followed our ascent route down. Progress was fast and this time we used the bridge to cross back to the east side among a herd of cattle. We had to wade across a few tributaries but mostly followed good trails. At one point a shepherd caught up to us and he seemed amused we were walking instead of riding horses. Camp down in the lower valley He turned off at Sarikonda village while we continued back to Sarytog by 11am. We found the Dornish Guest House there that fed us lunch and one of the owners was able to provide a taxi ride back to Dushanbe. We made it to Dushanbe that afternoon and returned to the Green House Hostel. I was glad we had made it out ahead of schedule since all the next day it rained and thunderstormed in town with widespread flooding nearby. The power was out and running water cut off to the entire city! I heard in the mountains they were getting a foot of snow! The routes up alpomish and khazret sultan probably would be out for a while. Hiking out I later processed my measurements and, based on the angular measurements I took and the known distance between alpomish and khazret sultan, I calculated alpomish is 25m +/-8m taller than khazret sultan. So given khazret sultan has a surveyed elevation of 4643m from the soviet map this means I measured alpomish has an elevation of 4668m +/-8m. This is consistent with the measurements taken from the tarn. This means Alpomish is the true country highpoint of Uzbekistan. After we got back to Dushanbe we had just barely enough time to climb Ayrybaba, the Turkmenistan highpoint. This completed our five-year project to climb the Highpoints of the Stans – the country highpoints of Afghanistan (Noshaq 7493m), Pakistan (K2 8611m), Kygyzstan (Pobeda 7439m), Kazakhstan (Khan Tengri 7000m), Tajikistan (Ismoil Somoni 7495m), Uzbekistan (Alpomish 4668m) and Turkmenistan (Ayrybaba 3139m). Link to more pictures: https://www.countryhighpoints.com/alpomish-uzbekistan-highpoint/ Gear Notes: Standard rack to 3", doubles of intermediate sizes, 60m rope, lots of tat and nuts for rap anchors, glacier gear, survey equipment Approach Notes: From Sarytog village hike up Dikondara river, cross two 4000m glaciated passes near Uzbekistan border, access valley east of Alpomish.

excuse the grammar, sentence structure, and spelling issues. i'm lagged af, and still recovering from just one night in Munich. there was this carnival there with big tents and lots of beer.

I've been reading The Bold and Cold by Pullan after my Rockies trip and it got me thinking about what a similar list would look like for my home range... the Oregon Cascades. For those that don't know, the Bold and Cold is 25 climbs, 5 groups of 5 routes, in the Canadian Rockies. Each group is supposed to be training for the next tier. The list was developed by famous climbs Urs Kallen and Dave Cheesmond. The five categories in the book are: Shakedown Routes, Maiden Routes, Middle Earth Routes, Galdiator Routes, Titans. All the routes are quite serious and the categories progress in commitment, length and remoteness. The crux pitch grade seems to have little to do with it. I think it would be fun to make a similar list for Washignton or the North Cascades... I think the routes would be more diverse there and the "Titans" category would actually be a bit more legit. Though still no where near what the Rockies offer. Curious to see other folks routes. Maybe for other ranges too. Here is my incomplete list. It is grouped more by category as that seemed to make more sense for this range. The Dumb and Chossy: Routes in the Oregon Cascades Crag Routes: (could include some from Smith, Beacon etc. here but wanted them to actually be in the range, once you add those two the list is kinda endless, any other multi-pitch adventure routes in the Oregon Cascades that form a decent challenge?) Exploring the Axis, Cougar Crag Dod Route, Turkey Monster Barad Dur, Wolf Rock (mostly) Snow Routes: Reid Headwall, Hood Thayer Headwall, North Sister High Noon, Broken Top Jeff Park Glacier, Jefferson Right Gully, Hood Technical Mountain Routes: (need one more, but Oregon is pretty lacking is this dept unless you have suicidal tendencies) West Ridge, Illumination Skylight, Illumination West Ridge, Washington East Buttress, Washington Ice Adventures: Eliot Headwall, Hood Center Gully, Hood Full Richardson, Broken Top Fric/Amos, Hood Emde/Ablao, Middle Sister Big Lines: Yocum Ridge, Hood Complete East Buttress, North Sister Arachnophobia, Hood Brainless Child, Thielsen After Image, Strawberries (not technically in the Oregon Cascades or in character with the others but I wanted a 5th and this is head and shoulders above other routes in sustained technical difficulty, and more remote)

Trip: Ruth, Mineral, and the not so Easy way to Easy Peak - Mineral Mountain High Route Trip Date: 08/12/2023 Trip Report: "This route goes from Hannegan Pass to join the Easy Ridge High Route. It is an arduous approach to the Northern Pickets. The most gruesome moments of green hell and cliffs are at Chilliwack Pass: the rest is alpine nectar." - Routes and Rocks In the Mt. Challenger Quadrangle. Tabor and Crowder. 1968 And so it goes- the yin and yang of North Cascades High routes. I like "alpine nectar" as much as anyone, and so does @BrettS, so we chose to ignore the first part of that description and headed out to find out for ourselves. As expected with a description like that, NOCA permits in Glacier were a breeze. A welcome break from the madness of Saturday mornings in Marblemount. Then ......we went into the hills for three days and walked a lot - sometimes on a trail, sometimes hovering over the ground on brush, sometimes skipping through alpine meadows that would make @rat break out in song. We had nice camps, we had tunes, we had whiskey and too much camera gear. The verdict- either we are getting toughened up, or forgetful, but I don't think either of us found the crux to be much of a "green hell"- more "black flies and heat" hell. Regardless, the trip certainly traverses some of the more scenic ridge lines in the range, and exit out Easy Ridge is especially, well, easy. Same with the entry via Hannegan Pass and Mount Ruth. The middle involves..... some shenanigans, but you knew that. Pretty pictures never tell the full story in the North Cascades. Both our camps near Ruth and on the summit of Easy Peak were highlights, as was the midday swim in the tarn below Easy Peak. Lowlights, as mentioned earlier, were the heat and bugs. But, having the Tom Selleck of the alpine along made it all seem like a breeze. Ruth from Hannegan trail: Alpine nectar! Blum and Icy: Go do the North Ridge of Blum! Slesse, the Haunted House of the Chilliwack: If you see this, you are about to start the shenanigans: The view distracts from the sidehill of green steepness: @BrettS past most of the shenanigans: This summer has been really hard on the glaciers: Crowder and Pioneer in front of the Southern Pickets: Get your autograph pens ready! Rare @JasonG sighting in the wild: Alpine nectar! Summit of Easy Peak: Southern Pickets: Pioneer and the mysterious depths of the Baker River: Late season insanity around Kulshan and Shuksan: Tomyhoi at sunset: I've never seen Challenger looking so grim: Putting in the work on the photos....Now do you see why I carry that yellow pad? The smoke teased, but never fully engulfed us: Looking across the border into Canada, where there is another fire: A tad soft, unfortunately, but the Hozomeens at sunrise: Spickard and the Mox Peaks: Alpine Nectar! fin: Gear Notes: We were able to avoid all ice and didn't need anything other than helmets. No glacier gear needed if you go around on Ruth Approach Notes: Follow Tabor and Crowder. Find yourself a copy of Routes and Rocks!

OVERVIEW This is an overdue report for several FAs. There certainly are other lines with potential and lots unexplored. Like most new routes, the rock here can vary in quality, though consistently solid granite. The vegetation has filled most cracks and lichen abounds. However, we did climb many stellar pitches without cleaning, and some with light excavation. Thar be lichen, wear some sunglasses for the overhanging cracks. Recommendation: Climb Ant and the Eel through Elevator Shaft roof for full value linkup. Whale and the Worm for a day 2 climb before heading home. APPROACH Ingalls Creek Trailhead, (see WTA), mile 8 or 9. There are maybe 2 or 3 nice creek camps between miles 8 and 10. On the way in, looking north (right) you should be able to spot the Elevator Shaft and roof, they stand out even in the ocean of of granite slabs. This is the crag. Once directly below the Elevator Shaft head ~45 minutes uphill total through brushy deadfall and talus, maybe 10 min to the talus field which you can follow almost all the way up. Either continue up to the wall then traverse right (some down climbing), or traverse through alder past a small waterfall just before the talus stops. Note there is a steep draw in this upper section, don't fall in while negotiating slide alder. These routes are listed left to right. ROUTES -Elevator Shaft, 11 something -Whale and the Worm, 10a/b -Ant and the Eel, 5.9+ The Elevator Shaft, 11 ? 2021 Sean Fujimori & Tom Beirne The stellar pitch is the 11a, which starts at the Big Ledge. You can get there via other routes, which we recommend. Seconding this route were Christian Junkar and Emma Sando, though they had more common sense than us to bail when the sun set. P1/P2 solo 5.6/5.7 slab with a view of the shaft roof. P3/P4 5.8 (broken up for rope drag) 5.8 corners ending at huge ledge. This was several years ago, but close enough to correct. P5 11? money pitch, Left facing corner, ~15-20' horizontal thin hands roof crack. Pull layback lip to a mellow slab and tree belay. No pictures - whipping on lichen ain't fun, so I was busy belaying. Sun set as I climbed, Emma and Christian bailed to camp. Sean - any pics of the roof? RAP: Short rap to fir tree 15m down and 10m climber right. Double 60m rap to elevator ledge, and from the last slab tree: double 60m to base. Whale and the Worm, 10a/b 2023 Tom Beirne, Sean Fujimori, Lydia Filipe Starts in the protected grove of the overhang with several rock benches and a large tree. Finishes on the Big Ledge connector. P1, 5.8 20m, Start on the right side of the diving board and diagonal traverse on top of the board into sideways squeeze chimney. Very strange, cool. Alternate direct start up short steep finger crack. Don't fear the drips, or the wet moss start. It gets better and remains dry afterward. P2, 10a/b 30m, Left facing corner crack, stay left at the split (two crack options, the right goes through a nootka rose). Fist crack trends left after the mantel to an overhanging hand/fist crack. Belay at the top to reduce rope drag. P3, 5.6 20' Traverse up and left through blocky 5.6 to the top slab. RAP: Small rap 10m to small pine at edge of slab, then double rope rap to base. Ant and the Eel 5.9+ Sean Fujimori, Tom Beirne, Lydia Felipe Start far right, walk a short 10m thru the greenery along the wall to a cave. P1, 60m, 5.9+. The Money Pitch! 3-star finger and hand crack, start at the entrance to the cave and follow crack up and left, when the crack transitions to fingers, reach far right for a jug ledge and mantel to continue the next crack system. Slab feet needed in crux mantel, very tricky if raining! This ends at the Big Ledge, so you can choose other routes from here. P2, 5.9+, 30m. Hand crack thru ocean spray bush with thoughtful mantels and slab feet with great hands and fingerlocks to bouldery top out. Belay at pine or dead tree. P3, 5.8 30m. Continue 20’ left past dead tree to wavy finger-eating crack, then traverse right in a nice finger crack under a small overhang. Pull onto ledge with some finesse. P4 5.7 70m, or break up into two pitches. Up the blocky slab, follow the veg direct via double chicken wing crack, to filled in finger crack and suffer or take the slab for an unprotected 15-20m runout. Over the small 5.6 roofs to a pine. Rap 1 From top of p4 pine, double 60 skier right to fir tree, 10m left of fall line. From fir, belay or walk down skier left 10m to next fir tree. This is the top of p3, dead tree left and pine on right. A double 60 could probably make it to the BIG LEDGE, BUT for rope pull ease and to reach the lowest pine on the edge of the slab for the final rap (which is a full double 60 to ground) we opted to: Rap2 30m to skier left or walk around low 5th moves to 15’ pine. Rap 3 Double 60 off pine to BIG LEDGE- to short pine skier right to fir on distant slab. Rap 4 Full double 60 to ground. Saddle bag and stay climber left of fall line ~5m going over the roof to prevent being in the tree. Free hang rappel to ground. Easy to get rope stuck in the tree, maybe worth trending climber right to avoid.

Thanks, all! For location convenience, below is some background info. on the two grade V's to the north of our route. Above, I referred to these both as climbing the NW Buttress, as they climb a vaguely wishbone-like buttress that trends WNW. However, the original Soviet party called their route the North Face, and third ascent party, the West Buttress. The Oregonians characterized their line as on the NW Buttress, which I think is a reasonable reference for the entire buttress. Excerpt from the Oregonian's trip report: SW Bonanza Peak (right) and West Bonanza Peak (left) seen from the west. (Photo: Steph Abegg) 1. NW Buttress, “The Oregonian Route.” 5.9+ V. Keena and Bonnett 2013. 2. W Buttress, "The Soviet Route." 5.9+/5.10 V. Bershov et. al. 1975. (Overlay as documented by 3rd ascent party) Our route, the Cascadian, ascends the West Face off to looker's right of these two routes, topping out just right of the summit. Our first pitch begins at the small caret-shaped (^) snowfield in the pic. Here's Steph Abegg's well-researched and documented account of a third ascent of the Soviet Route, including some interesting route history: https://sites.google.com/stephabegg.com/washington/tripreports/bonanza She rightly characterizes the wall as "rival in size and difficulty to many of the biggest faces in the Cascades". This route felt reminiscent of the routes @rat and I climbed on the Hozomeens, but with a better kind of rock-quality variability, and much easier access. It has my qualified recommendation, fwiw. Here's the view of Bonanza's west wall a couple years ago en route to (or from?) Dark Peak. The Cascadian ascends slightly left of center (begins just right of the tiny snowpatch), the other routes begin out of view at far left margin. The portion of the wall to the right, above the long snowfield, is unclimbed and looks positively atrocioulicious.

Here are the pitch notes I took while on route, for anyone ever interested in repeating. I always try to take pitch notes, both from a sense of eternal optimism and my absolutely horrible memory... There were bouts of really awesome climbing, and a couple engaging pitches with minimal protection, hard climbing and consistently portable holds. P1 5.4 220’ Scramble up white slabs to a good stance below the large, steeper band of darker rock. You are aiming for an obvious, large open book for the next pitch. P2 5.8 190’ Head up into the open book, climbing to its top. Traverse left back into low fifth terrain to a talus covered bowl. P3 5.6 260’ Climb the rib to the right of the bowl past a bunch of scrambling to another large talus ledge. P4 5.9R 140’ Climb through a heinous choss band into a gully with better rock. P5 Low fifth 230’ Scramble up the gully to a solid belay. P6 low 5th 150’ gully P7 5.7 100’ Start up the face. Trend Left to a Left facing corner. Follow this to a good ledge on the prow. P8 5.10a 110’ climb the face past a roof and up a ramp to a second roof. Belay on good ledge. P9 5.10 200’ Climb the thin Right facing corner to a ledge. Then a short steep section takes you to a ramp. Follow this to a Right facing corner. Climb up this to some scrambling that leads to a large ledge. P10 5.7 180’ Climb the low angle, loose face to a shit belay. P11 5.10R 150’ Quest up the face to a decent ledge with a tricky anchor P12 5.10R 180’ Another vision quest pitch to the notch on the shoulder of the ridge. P13 5.10+ 60’ Climb the overhanging splitter to a chossy ramp. P14 5.9 170’ Start up a nice varnished corner that eases to chossy mid fifth P15 5.8 110’ Traverse to the ramp on the right. Follow it to the S ridge P16 4th 250’ A short scramble takes you to the SW summit.

Trip: Glacier Peak - Frostbite Ridge Trip Date: 08/18/2023 Trip Report: North Face of Dakobed Solo (4th AI2 Steep Snow) I had been eyeing this route all summer and finally the weather and ice conditions lined up for an attempt. The varied terrain felt like a good alpine test piece for me. Day 1: Frostbite Ridge (Kennedy Glacier Approach) Day 2: Descent via Gerdine Ridge Direct/Disappointment Peak Cleaver Started the day at 3:01am from the North Fork Sauk Trailhead weaving through the forest by headlamp. Thoughts of rogue black bears and mountain lions were looming as it tried to keep about a 3mph pace. After about 3 hours and several water stops I made it to the PCT N-S junction. I tried my hardest this time to hydrate the day before and during the approach to be able to save on water consumption at the top and on the descent. The trail then continues on the PCT heading N over a ridge towards portal peak. Eventually descending to a beautiful meadow before being swallowed by the forest. I made it to Fire Creek Pass at 1130am, stopped for lunch and to fill up on water, the taste of a fresh roast beef sandwich while deep in the wilderness was pretty primal. At 12 I left the PCT up the Glacier Creek drainage for some light bushwhacking. Soon I gained the ridge that overlooks the remnants of the Kennedy glacier and saw the bivy site everyone mentions. This would be a good stopping point (about 22 miles in) but i knew a summit bivy would make this climb more special. The climb up the left side of the stream was half ultra loose rocks and dirt and moraine covered remnants of the glacier. Rockfall on the left and seracs on the right. pick your poison here. I followed the rocks on the edge of the ice for what felt like forever until finally putting my crampons on at the foot of the glacier. It looked like a bomb went off here, glacier broken to pieces, rocks everywhere, and somehow the loose rocks even had dirt and smaller rocks on top of them too. Had to zig-zag across the glacier to find connected pieces, moved slowly and deliberately through here. Only had to really step on 2 snow bridges, the rest was connected ice of the glacier. Eventually the glacier joins with Frostbite ridge where I left my crampons on and pretended this was like DC. This “Ridge” is simply a pile of scree, every step felt like walking in ankle deep powder and dislodged tons of debris. Struggled up the ridge, broke a trekking pole, and finally got on the little knife edge under the “rabbits dick”. Every step here raining rocks down both sides of the ridge. Really glad i was the only person out here for this section. Finally got to the feature and took the recommended bypass to the left across the steep snow slopes. This section was quite exposed and the wind blown neve was fun to climb. Finally got to the rabbits ears. The downclimbing here was way less sketchy that i thought it was going to be. Simple scrambling down to the steep snow field traverse, running water here. Motored up the upper Kennedy glacier and traversed around a hole to get to the ridge above. Then the unnamed headwall came into view, glowing in the evening sunshine. Sharing a sunset with the North Face of most remote Cascadian Volcano was special. I was racing the sun at this point, it was beginning to set and I only had about an hour to make it to the top before it was going to be getting dark. The base of the head wall was all exposed ice, all the snow was gone. I climbed the first ice step in the sunset, and on the ledge feature that splits the headwall the sun went down. Almost every stick was a hero swing, maybe 1/10 shattered some surface rot. The ice was steep enough that you couldn't walk up it, definitely at least AI2, but also had lots of features to rest on if you needed. I got some sweet gopro footage of the climb that shows the conditions/difficulty encountered. https://youtu.be/lv3px5eKino?si=-lHOC3Eju77gPPuO Climbed the second step and topped out at 830pm. I crested the snow dome in the back using both my axes as canes and out of breath from racing the sun up the headwall. I was completely worked but the summit was just steps away on a rock formation to the right. I got to sign the register in the last rays of sun for the day. Magical. It was incredibly windy, maybe 40+ mph gusts, and afterwards I retreated to the bivy site and set up my bag in the howling wind with shaking hands. I didn’t end up eating my dehydrated meal because boiling water in this wind was going to virtually impossible with a Jetboil. I settled for a pop tart and fell asleep to the whipping sound of my bivy sack in the wind. Woke up around 1am and it was dead silent, poked my head out of the bag and the vast array of stars greeted me. Just the starlight was bright enough that I didn't need a headlamp to see around me. I slipped in and out of sleep until finally getting up at 630am to pack up. Chatted with a nice guy who made it to the summit for sunrise and got some beta for the scramble. I started the descent at 7am and made it to the car at 4:15ish. Opted for the loose scramble on disappointment peak since the Cool Glacier looked completely shattered and apparently the downclimbing isn’t that bad. I figured if there is an option to avoid soloing a glacier it should be taken. Some super chill people gave me cliff bar at the campsites by the base of the Gerdine Ridge, this was much needed as I just ate my last stinger moments before. If i thought Kennedy Glacier looked like it got carpet bombed, then the south side of the mountain looks like its been through a nuclear blast. The shattered landscape seemed to stretch on forever, but the occasional wildflower was nice to see. Doing this big lollipop loop had such varied terrain which added to the classic feel. It was also interesting/sad to see how much the ice/snow has receded from past trip reports on here. This felt like a blue collar Mt Olympus, a little more rugged but overall similar vibes. Instead of finishing with mellow rock climbing, you finish with mellow ice climbing. Instead of a pristine NP trail to get to the glacier, you have PCT linked to a bushwhack chossfest. Instead of paved NP roads, you have the 10 mile potholed forest service road. No Cascades alpine ascent is truly complete without a margarita and Carne Asada stop at Dos agaves in Darrington. Gear Notes: 2 tools made sense for me since I'm not a super strong ice climber. Unsung hero was the bag of salt and potassium i brought. Packing List: https://lighterpack.com/r/0phmnc Approach Notes: Stats: 36hr51m c2c, 17.5hr car to summit Tracks: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/afternoon-hike-a62344a-60

Trip: mt. kent - north face Trip Date: 03/05/2019 Trip Report: sub-alpinism seems to have understandably fallen out of favor given conditions in the coulees, sw b.c. and patagonia. couple of overview photos from yesterday: yesterday's route provided a half dozen entertaining ice/turf/rock steps. once above the last step, ~300 v.f. of forest take you directly to the summit. the quickest descent is down the east ridge then down the large avalanche gully on the left side of the face: there is old red webbing around a tree on skier's right but it is now easily down climbed. if you mistakenly drop down the burdick/fortier gully as i initially did, you could probably do a couple raps down the final two steps w/ one rope. the last couple of steps before the forest: annotated photo from ~2007: the photo above was copied from this thread: Gear Notes: the usual sharp stuff. Approach Notes: xc up east side of alice creek.